Israeli Minister Cynically Takes Advantage of Attacks on French Jews By Expanding West Bank Settlements

The Jerusalem Post reports that members of the Israeli state are using the recent attack on a French kosher supermarket in Paris to expand West Bank occupation settlements.

On Monday, Zahava Gal-On, leader of the Meretz Party, requested Israel’s parliamentary Election Committee to accommodate for Jewish “refugees” by expanding Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Such an act suggests that Israeli leaders are using the attack last week as a chance to connect Palestinians to “terrorism” and to justify Israel’s continuing colonization of Palestine.

Israeli Construction Minister Uri Ariel of Bayut Yehudi, the far-right national-religious “Jewish Home Party,” has already taken the first steps to clear Palestinian homes and land by identifying potential sites for new occupation settlements.

Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency – which is responsible for the immigration and absorption of diaspora Jews – recently stated that he foresees over 100,000 Jews moving to Israel from France in the next 20 years. He predicts that a record 15,000 French Jews could migrate to Israel in 2015.

How, then, will the Israeli state absorb all of these “refugees”? By stealing territory and forcibly removing Palestinians from their own land?

Ironically, the French state recently called on Israel to “immediately” reverse a decision to approve the building of 200 new homes in occupation settlements in East Jerusalem, as noted by Yahoo. Israel does not seem to be moved by France’s opinion.

Let’s be honest – Israel is no place for non-Jews, especially Palestinians. Minister Ariel, for example, recently claimed that “Israel is the home of world Jewry. At this time when anti-Semitism is once more breaking out, we must act to allow for the smooth absorption of new [Jewish] immigrants.” So much for Israel’s “secular identity.”

One can argue that Israel does not care about all refugees, only Jewish “refugees”? International law states that Palestinian refugees have a “right to return” to their ancestral homes, most of which are now in Israel. Does Israel even care?

Such a cynical move of punishing Palestinians for activities that happened on another continent by people of no immediate relation is, quite simply, a crime against humanity.